It does, but is useless in this environment (we have the same stupid terminal service rules in our work environment). I had a backup job which ran for several hours, and the task scheduler (Server 2003) would pop up a DOS window with the title SVCHOST.EXE that would appear in terminal services if I logged in while the backup was running. When I hit the inactive timeout, the job being run by the task scheduler would also be killed.

To work around this I wrote a cron scheduler which used the NT resource kit SRVANY utility and was a truly a background task, so terminal services wouldn't interfere with it.

The whole "I know there's nothing to do, but just look busy, OK" thing is chillingly familiar. Calls to mind the worst job I ever did...

It was an idle period for the team I was on, a few months in between projects when there was nothing doing. We had a great big database of payment details, and one day a manager walks in with a gazillion page report printed from it. And asks us to check the figures in the report against the original tables.

The scariest thing was that he genuinely believed there could have been differences. And no amount of reasoning/ranting could get him to think otherwise.

My day job also includes running a big database build on a remote Windows server daily, (though mine takes 5 hours not 7).

It's scheduled overnight from the task scheduler, and usually finished long before I get up in the morning. It mails me if it has any problems - or an OK message if it doesn't. So I don't even need to check the logs unless there was a problem - or if I don't get ANY message.

It does help that I have Admin access on the server, but I recall doing much the same with an ordinary account and AT when I first started running it.

Had to do all this because Fisher Price isn't on our approved supplier list, so I wouldn't be allowed to install a Fisher Price rocker :-)

Yeah, because the program has a potential security leak. There's no way that malicious software could be piggybacked onto the FP-VRC and get into the production equipment.

Would YOU want to trust the new guy to download and install a new program designed to cheat AllAdvantage?

Leaving a console open is a pretty big security hole, all by itself, if nobody is watching the thing.
There's a reason there is an idle session limit. Getting around it in any way is as much a wtf as any other way, though this is definitely a more creative one.

Yeah, because the program has a potential security leak. There's no way that malicious software could be piggybacked onto the FP-VRC and get into the production equipment.

Would YOU want to trust the new guy to download and install a new program designed to cheat AllAdvantage?

Leaving a console open is a pretty big security hole, all by itself, if nobody is watching the thing.
There's a reason there is an idle session limit. Getting around it in any way is as much a wtf as any other way, though this is definitely a more creative one.

Yes, but The Real WTF (tm) is that IT wasn't flexible enough to work with them, and was actively getting in the way of their job. The session shouldn't have been running at all -- this should have been run in the background as a service. Of course, as per the article, IT would have balked at that idea.

Least access and other such security protocols are always a good idea, but you need to trust your employees at least enough to let them get their jobs done.

Responding to an internal Email asking how to converting a Word document to PDF, a guy titled senior IT consultant gave such answer:
Print the Word document to paper (after walking around 20 meters, I worked in a fairly large company); (walk around 50 meters to) go to the scanner and scan the document, a program on the workstation connecting to the scanner can convert the OCR result into PDF; Copy the PDF file to a public directory; Get back to your own PC and grab the PDF file.

I did not quite understand when I first read the post by the senior consultant, as I knew there were many PDF printer programs around many of which are free.

However, even if you are not aware that there exist Word2PDF programs around, you as IT guy should realize that any bit conversion outside bit stream is crime. For example, converting digital Word to digital PDF using analog methods (printing to paper, and then scan) is crime. You should search for digital resource to find out whether someone had invented the wheel.